The case for globalized labor | Salon.com : "Dani Rodrik, an economist at Harvard, estimates that a worker in the first world earns 10 times more than someone with similar qualifications in the third. Even a light loosening of immigration restrictions, Rodrik argues, would provide a far bigger boost to the world's poor than knocking down all the famously crippling agricultural subsidies. After all, for many in those countries, their biggest asset is their labor, and the current system forces them to sell it at much lower than market value. If free trade is a tide that lifts all boats, then so is free labor. But this time, the smallest boats get the biggest boost. If we're going to ask countries to let in our goods, we should be willing to let in their workers."

(Via Salon.)